maze

Nostalgic Chainsaws from Hell sounds like fun, doesn't it? The game is a maze-crazed puzzler that has you navigating the seven circles of Hell in order to piece together your sinful past. Watch out for ... well, everything. Everything in this game will kill you. You will die a lot. But the art is cute.

In the arcade puzzler Neonball you must bounce the titular object through a maze toward an exit point, while avoiding lasers and other obstacles. Apparently passing the test gives you the right to live in Neoncity ... or something to that effect. What are you waiting for, citizen? Get to bouncing.

The jobs you have as a video game player... In Test Subject Complete, you're a tiny blob of fluid injected into an itty-bitty robotic power suit. Your job is to navigate a deadly-micro-organism-filled maze while a creepy mad scientist watches over you and chuckles. Hey, it's a living.

If I had a dollar for every time a traitorous monkey crashed my submarine and absconded with my magical crown from an ancient civilization, I'd be rich. That tired old scenario rears its head once again in Aqua Boy. You play the titular kid, swimming your way through a "Metroidvania"-style maze filled with danger and reward. Gather up weapons and equipment, fight off undersea threats, and go kick that monkey's ass.

Sometimes fast is good. Sometimes red is bad. As true in real life as it is in the zippy action platformer Fae. Jump your little ... head-thing around a maze of platforms and walls. Don't touch anything that's red. And get a move on, this is a race against time, people!

It's getting a touch chilly outside, don't you think? Winter is definitely in the air. So why not stay inside and play some wintery games? I suggest trying your hand at Ice Beak. This pleasingly 8-bit scroll-and-shoot puts you in the role of an ice-blasting bird navigating a lava-filled maze. There's a bit of puzzle solving to be had as well, since you must use your ice abilities to their best advantage to navigate the trap-filled maze in which you find yourself. Just remember to keep your cool.

David Shute's Small Worlds is a fascinating maze game that gets more gorgeous the longer you play it. Your goal is simply exploration. The more you move, the more you see. It's amazing to watch the game's simple, colorful pixels bloom into larger and more complex images as your perspective expands. Some solid jumping skills will help you get through to the game's end, but you can't be killed along the way, so trial and error are your friends. Explore away!

King Lear at the Adobe Theater

By Steven Robert Allen

After having his eyeballs gouged out by the Earl of Cornwall, the Earl of Gloucester utters one of the most memorable lines in King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.” Given the compounded misery stuffed into this gruesome play, you might think that's the lesson here. You'd be wrong.